07/07/2013 Sunday Politics Northern Ireland

And coming up here: A damning report followed by a declaration of no

confidence. What does the future hold for the Historical Enquiries

Team? We hear from Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly and Tom Elliott from the

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2167 seconds

in Northern Ireland. A damning report followed by a

declaration of no confidence from the Policing Board. What does the

future hold for the Historical Enquires Team? We'll be asking two

senior MLAs if the HET will survive the current crisis.

Also today, it's been hailed as a huge opportunity to showcase

Northern Ireland. So can the World Police and Fires Games live up to

the hype? We'll hear from chair of the games, Judith Gillespie.

To discuss all of that and more, my guests today are the journalist,

Steven McCaffery, and the financial commentator Paul Gosling.

Tomorrow the head of the Historical Enquiries, Dave Cox, is due to meet

the Chief Constable for the first time since the Policing Board

declared it had no confidence in the team's leadership. It follows a

damning report, which strongly criticised the HET for dealing with

killings by soldiers with 'less rigour' than those with no state

involvement. So, with the body under increasing pressure, does the crisis

re-open the debate about how best to deal with the past? I'm joined now

by Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly and Tom Elliott from the Ulster Unionists.

The head of the HET, Dave Cox, is due to meet the Chief Constable

tomorrow. What needs to happen at that meeting? I think it is

important that there is no confidence in the leadership of the

HET and Dave Cox clearly is in the leadership of that. We are talking

about a different approach to state cases and non-state cases as a

matter of written down policy and guidelines, and somebody has to take

responsibility for that. When the person who led the inquiry was

direct -- directly asked by the Policing Board he was responsible,

he said it was the Chief Constable. The Chief Constable has said that

the wrongful policy was a matter of the HET. What is very, very clear is

that a policy decision was made and it was illegal, which is the other

important thing to say. It was actually unlawful to do this. It was

unlawful and untenable, so someone has to tell us what is going to

happen to whoever was responsible. Would you like to see Dave Cox

resigning? If he is the leader and you have no confidence, does he have

to go? My position is very clear. There is no way that I can see Dave

Cox staying. Does it stop at bats or does it have ramifications for the

Chief Constable as well. -- does it stop at that or does it have

ramifications for the Chief Constable as well? We are setting up

with the Policing Board in charge 18 to implement the 20 recommendations

-- with the Policing Board 18 two implement the 20 recommendations

that have been made. League-macro you cannot blame everything on the

establishment. -- you cannot blame everything on the establishment.

did not believe they were carrying out a proper review process of many

of the murders. I think we are getting into a system that appears

to be blaming the state for everything. Let's not forget that

ever 90% of the murders in Northern Ireland were by terrorists, not by

the state. That does not what this investigation was about. That is not

what we are discussing. This investigation and this particular

room port is very narrow in its focus. Look at the 31 cases, a vast

majority of them were cases that the state was involved in. The state was

involved in less than 10% of the overall murders in Northern Ireland.

There are people from the community that I represent to our saying that

they are only seeing one side of the report and they want people to get

justice for all of the murders that were caused by terrorists. That

might be the case and that might be an issue that is discussed at

another time. The point is, we are discussing this particular review of

the work of the HET which was tasked with looking after a specific area,

and it has come up with these damning conclusions. Are you not

concerned that the HET -- HET has been found to be operating in a way

that is untenable and unlawful? concerned, just as I was concerned

for years ago about them not approaching those who could have

been of help and assistance in approaching these investigations.

Any number of Sinn Fein, even Sinn Fein collectively, there were any

number of people who could've helped with these cases, and they have not

once. What needs to happen to resolve this issue is to go forward?

If you look at the other inquiries going on, including the police and

coroner inquests, I do not believe the system we have in place can

actually deal with the past. I believe that we have got to a stage

now where there is no confidence in dealing with the past overall

because people from the Unionists agenda -- Unionist party see that

there is an agenda and that they are not getting fairness and equality.

If the vast majority of the people in the country were murdered by

terrorists... Whether you like it or not, it is clearly a view which is

held by a lot of people, and it is part of the difficulty that we all

face as a society. He is giving the impression that this is not fair.

You have to remember what this report is about. It is about the

unfairness of those who were not in the state cases. It is quite the

flip side of what Tom saying. -- Tom is saying. Sinn Fein for a long time

have said that the best way to deal with the past is to go through a

process, and there are many examples of these, and they have been

adapted. It is Unionists who are refusing to go anywhere near a truth

process. I am very much up for it. That is where we need to go. It is

important to say this, Professor Patricia Lundy, as far back as that

point of the difficulties, she was rubbish, her reputation was ruined.

Her reputation is intact. All I am saying is that it was quite unfair

that but the HET in answer to the report and members of the PSNI

ruined her and she has been being vacated and it needs to be said. --

vindicated. You have said that the recommendations need to be put back

on the table again and that we look at the Legacy Commission led by an

end -- international figure to take over the work of the police

ombudsman and the HET. Is that one of the options? It may be. He talks

about trying to get a truth commission. How are you going to get

a truth commission trying to operate properly when you have some people

think they have no issues of terrorism in the community and they

do not believe there are terrorists in the community? Isn't it to the

point that within a truth commission, people would address

issues in a way that they do not address them at the moment? You have

no idea what anybody might say when they are giving evidence to a truth

commission. But we have to take some example with what Martin McGuinness

did in the bloody Sunday inquiry where he said he could not give

further evidence because of a code. If I could finish this point, that

is a major issue for people from the Unionist community. Those are people

who had friends and colleagues murdered by those terrorists.

are the facts. The facts are that there is something like 400 State

killings during the conflict, that in terms of collusion, that goes way

up past 1000. In terms of people who have gone to jail, there are tens of

thousands of cases of non-state people who have gone through jail,

including myself. There are hundreds of thousands there already. How many

of the state forces? They all get out within a couple of years.

think these recommendations should be back on the table? What I think

we should do in terms of the HET is to try to find a way for them in

terms of truth and hopefully that will be the racks. No matter who you

talk to, people will agree that they want the truth. Give them the

truth, but everybody has to be involved, including state forces.

might hear another word from you in a moment, but I want to get my

guests in. Journalist Steven McCaffery and financial commentator

Paul Gosling. What do you think about what you have heard so far?

was not that long ago that we had the collapse of the police

ombudsman's office. Whether you thought it was a good thing or a bad

thing, we had a decisive row over the reemployment of certain officers

in the PSNI. All of these issues continue to impact on the present

and threaten the future of our institutions. We have police

officers who want to invest but are encouraged or feel as if the past

hangs over them. We asked some prisoners -- former prisoners to

help out with the marching season. We want to invest in the future and

we want these groups to pay for the past. There is also the needs of the

victims. I think with the reports, we will continue to refer back to

it. Do you think it'll find its way back onto the table? It has not been

written off by the two parties but it has not exactly been embraced

either. We have been talking about it and Stormont. Do you think we can

square the circle in terms of dealing with the past, because

clearly, people take very, very different views of where we are and

how we got here. I think we have to give up on achieving justice for the

past. We have to achieve truth for the past and move towards truth and

reconciliation and go back to the reports without -- to the reports

and say that, unfortunately, those things that went wrong during the

Troubles, we cannot punish every single person that was guilty of

that. If we did that, the peace process would collapse. The peace

process and reconciliation are more important than achieving justice for

past evil. So you think it is impossible -- so you think it is

possible to achieve truth but not necessarily alongside justice.

Is that unacceptable from your point of view? I think it is a reasonable

comment, but we have to remember that there is still a lack of

competence. Quite a lot of the state history is documented. There is a

lot of history documented I am not so sure that the things we have in

place can deal with the past. state was involved in terrorism. We

can argue about this all day. I agree with Paul that street is --

truth is not necessarily equal and it doesn't necessarily lead to

justice or reconciliation. We have a conundrum which we can work through,

but I repeat the one thing which is agreed, if that's truth, it may not

help and it might make people better, but let's get the truth. We

have to have some way of dealing with the other issues which are

involved. You cannot wipe it out. Everybody agrees that this is what

it is about. Victims, right cross the board. Therefore everybody needs

to be involved and the difficulties in need to be in the sized that

people are facing. -- emphasized. have to leave it there. Thank you

very much. We will hear more from our commentators admit later in the

programme. Now for a look at the political week in 60 seconds with

Stephen Walker. The Ulster Bank announced it was

cutting jobs and closing branches, much to the anger of an ballet.

Employees were informed of job losses. Reassurance about drug

dealers. The police will go after drug dealers. And ended the -- and

investigation into how the Army treated certain situations during

the Troubles. A storm and committee launched an inquiry and the minister

was called to step aside. -- a Stormont committee. But Nelson has

said he is staying put. I have no intention of stepping aside from

doing the job that I am doing. An opening ceremony at the King's

Hall in Belfast on the first of August will mark the opening of the

World Police and Fire Games. It's a big international event which is

held every two years. At one time it was hoped that as many 10,000

athletes would compete in the Belfast games. While that figure now

looks likely to be closer to 6,000, the organisers are confident the

event will showcase Northern Ireland and deliver a boost to the economy.

The Deputy Chief Constable, Judith Gillespie, is chair of the games and

she's with me this morning. What are the latest figures you have about

how many competitors there will be? Even today we have over 6100

athletes formally registered, and we remain hopeful that we will get near

to 7000 athletes coming over. Whilst we would say, yes, the original

target was 10,000 athletes and we are likely to fall short of that, if

I had said to you a couple of years ago that you would have 7000 people

from 60 different countries to take part in an international sporting

event in Belfast, you would have thought it was fantastic, so I feel

it will still be a great opportunity for Northern Ireland. Do you think

it has caught the public imagination? It is clearly very

exciting for the people who are involved. But out there in the

community, when you talk to people, you do not hear too many people

saying that they are looking forward to the 1st of August, do you?

would disagree with you on that point. Around 6000 people have

volunteered to be part of the games makers on the back of a very

successful London Olympics, and we are going to be using around 3600 of

those people in the ten days of the games. We have exceeded our

sponsorship target in a very challenging economic climate in

Northern Ireland, and that is fantastic to have some companies on

board who want to associate with the games, and we have people coming

from 60 companies all over the world, really remote parts of the

world like Mongolia and Ecuador. Many people are catching the spirit.

What will be the economic benefit? The cost to the public is just under

�40 million. What is the potential benefits in return for that

investment? -- just under �14 million. There is the benefit for

the hotels, the pubs and the venues all around Northern Ireland in which

these visitors will be interested in going. It is also the legacy of the

games. The relationships between our services and the community, the

relationships between some of the schools and international teams, for

example, we have a buddy scheme where some of our primary schools

have been but eat up with some teams coming from across the world, and it

will be a fantastic opportunity for the volunteer -- Olympics -- for the

volunteers, who may be going on to volunteer at the Commonwealth games.

But the economic benefit was talked up at the start of the process.

There were huge figures bandied around for the economic benefit for

Northern Ireland over a period of time in relation to the G8 summit

happening. Do you think you over and the pudding at the outset? Bear in

mind that the games are paid for by the athletes themselves. These are

retired police officers and fire service workers who are coming to

participate in these games. It is very different from the Commonwealth

games and Olympic Games where there is a significant sponsorship. These

people are coming out of their own money. The global recession has had

an impact on the games, but bear in mind, even now, we have 6100 people

who have indicated that they are coming and they have booked

accommodation and they are coming, so it is going to be a great

opportunity for Belfast and the whole of Northern Ireland. I am sure

a lot of people would agree with you. But some people might see a

difficulties in the fact that this time last year, we were looking

forward to the Olympics, and that was the pinnacle of athletic

achievement, said people have that fresh in their minds. They are

watching Wimbledon at the moment. We know there is so much excellent

sport out there. These are not professional sportsmen and women. I

just wonder is there the public interest to the same extent. It is

not likely, is it? It is true to say that the ethos of the World Police

and Fire Games is not about world-class sport, although there

are some world-class athletes who take part. We have some excellent

athletes who have taken part at a national and international level.

But the whole ethos of the games is about the timeliness of them --

friendliness of them. I think the local people want to be involved in

that. There will be links to all of the things that are going on at the

same time. It is a fantastic opportunity for the local community

to reengage with their local services. I cannot let you go

without asking about the earlier discussion that we had today, the

HET and quite what happens to it. Is it not usually embarrassing for the

PSNI that an organisation that it is responsible for has been found by

inspectors to be operating in a way deemed to be untenable and illegal

and have misinterpreted the very law? I think the Chief Constable has

dealt competently with this in the last couple of days. We have

recognised the gravity of the situation. The recommendations in

the report will be moving quickly to implement with the oversight of the

Policing Board. This has to be viewed with the wider context of the

past. If this report does nothing else but to re-energize that

conversation about the wider legacy issues and how we deal with them as

a society, that is very welcome. will be a very difficult

conversation tomorrow between mats Baggett and Dave Cox tomorrow

afternoon. And that is one that needs to take place. We need to talk

about how we will re-energize the Policing Board of the longer term.

It is a Constable -- conversation between the Chief Constable and the

HET. I think the Chief Constable will be looking for Dave's

insurances about -- assurances about the commenting these as soon as

possible. Just time for a final word with our guests Steven McCaffery and

Paul Gosling. Looking forward to them? It means nothing to me, I am

afraid. I had never even heard of the Historical Enquires Team before.

We have the -- the City of Culture is magnificent and has turned the

city around, but I will not even be switching the television on for the

World Police and Fire Games. It'll hopefully be part of a quiet and

positive summer. The recall of the Assembly tomorrow to debate the

allegations made about political interference in the running of the

NI Housing Executive? I think it is going to be a very heated meeting.

There has been an absence of scrutiny from the point of view of

the public. There were some damning allegations brought to the table